Vermont agreed not to enforce its net neutrality law or executive order, and ISPs agreed to pause their lawsuit against the state, while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit weighs the FCC’s 2017 order rescinding 2015 open-internet rules. “Parties wish to avoid a waste of judicial and party resources,” said a stipulation (in Pacer) Thursday at U.S. District Court in Burlington. An industry motion for summary judgment and Vermont motion to dismiss were pending (see 1902060057). Vermont restricted state procurement to ISPs that follow net neutrality rules. The agreement is “a win for consumers that will allow continued innovation and investment while these deliberations continue,” said the American Cable Association, CTIA, NCTA, New England Cable & Telecommunications Association and USTelecom, adding that Congress should pass a national law. Gov. Phil Scott (R) and the FCC didn't comment. California struck a similar deal with ISPs and DOJ in October (see 1810260045). Free State Foundation President Randolph May said that "from a legal perspective, it just doesn’t make sense for any state to move forward until the Mozilla case is resolved."

Hilton Grand Vacations asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to suspend review of a consumer's appeal in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case. The FCC "will soon issue its position on the key question in this case -- what counts as an 'automatic telephone dialing system' under the [TCPA]," said Hilton's motion (in Pacer) Tuesday in Melanie Glasser v. HGV, No. 18-14499-J. A U.S. district court sided with Hilton in ruling its telemarketing calls to Glasser weren't made by an ATDS, the use of which is restricted by the TCPA. Consumer groups back her appeal (see 1901250002). "The Supreme Court will soon decide what degree of deference the Commission's decision should receive in private litigation like this case," Hilton added. To conserve resources, the 11th Circuit "should stay proceedings" until the commission and high court act, Hilton said. The FCC, which is considering the ATDS definition and other TCPA issues, declined comment Wednesday. The Supreme Court is to hear oral argument March 25 on whether the Hobbs Act required a district court, in an unsolicited fax lawsuit, to accept an FCC TCPA interpretation, and Hilton said a high court decision in PDR Network v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, No. 17-1705, is expected by the end of June. Carlton & Harris and the U.S. solicitor general argue that the Hobbs Act strips defendants of a right to challenge agency decisions "by requiring enforcement courts to slavishly apply legal interpretations announced in covered agency orders," said PDR's reply Monday. "Nothing in the Hobbs Act compels that disturbing and anomalous result." Others support one side or the other, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said businesses must be able to challenge the reach and basis of FCC TCPA decisions cited in district court litigation exposing them to large damages (see 1901160030). FCC orders are subject to U.S. appellate court review.

FCC commissioners approved an NPRM proposing a reconfiguration of the 900 MHz band, creating a paired 3/3 MHz broadband segment while reserving two segments for continued narrowband operations. The NPRM was to be voted at Friday’s commissioners’ meeting (see 1902210048), part of the 5G focus of the meeting. “In light of the continuing evolution of technology and the marketplace, and consistent with the Commission’s recent efforts to increase access to flexible-use spectrum, we propose to reconfigure the 900 MHz band to facilitate the development of broadband technologies and services as well, including for critical infrastructure,” said the draft NPRM. The approved version wasn’t released by our deadline. It closely tracks the draft circulated by Chairman Ajit Pai, officials said. The NPRM also seeks comment on alternate approaches to realigning the band proposed to license the broadband segment on a geographic basis. “Designating this valuable spectrum for broadband will allow innovation and investment to flow, bringing the benefits of broadband to a new range of private enterprise customers, including utilities and other critical enterprise entities,” said Robert Schwartz, president of pdvWireless, which sought the NPRM along with the Enterprise Wireless Alliance (see 1708160059). “Private, secure wireless networks, which are essential to securing our nation's grid and providing broadband to private enterprise, are a perfect fit for this block of spectrum." Earlier this week, a broadcast TV item initially slated for Friday was issued after it too was approved early on circulation (see 1903120048).

Verizon Wireless suffered an East Coast texting outage, the carrier tweeted in reply to customer complaints Tuesday morning. “Our technicians a fully aware we have a ton of customers that are being effected [sic], and we're working non-stop to get this matter resolved as soon as possible.” The problem appeared to end later that morning. Service is fully restored after Verizon “experienced an issue impacting texting services for some customers this morning,” a spokesperson emailed us. “Our engineers were able to identify and resolve the issue quickly.”

The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and Office of General Counsel were consulted before the FCC adopted controversial changes the Enforcement Bureau proposed to its informal complaint process (see 1807120033), Chairman Ajit Pai told the chairmen of the House Commerce Committee and the Communications Subcommittee. CGB "concluded that the changes did not impact its role in assisting consumers with informal complaints, and the [OGC] concluded that the changes did not alter the Commission's authority to investigate and address the concerns raised in informal complaints," he wrote, answering questions from Reps. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Mike Doyle, D-Pa., posted Monday in docket 19-9. There's no "systemic backlog" and 36 employees and contractors are dealing with consumer informal complaints in FY 2019, compared with 35 in FY 2018, 32 in FY 2017, 37 in FY 2016 and 48 in FY 2015, Pai wrote. Separately, Pai said commissioners had voted on items "to fight unlawful robocalls and caller ID spoofing" at almost half of the 25 monthly meetings he's chaired. "I am committed to a multi-pronged attack on the problem -- through rulemaking, enforcement actions, consumer education, and collaboration with other government agencies and industry," he wrote, listing various actions in response to robocall concerns expressed by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. HBO's John Oliver slammed Pai Sunday for not doing enough here (see 1903110072).

The partial government shutdown delayed Commerce Department work on tech export controls, Bureau of Industry and Security officials told an event hosted by the American Bar Association Monday. A Nov. 19 Federal Register notice had sought comment by Dec. 19 “for identifying emerging technologies that are essential to U.S. national security,” with categories including artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. Director Hillary Hess of the BIS regulatory policy office said “we are behind where we thought we were gonna be.” BIS' Kirsten Mortimer and others also cited the number of submissions. Mortimer said BIS received 231 comments, including 215 pages of suggestions on robotics and 220 pages on “position, navigation and timing” equipment. “The shutdown was really not our friend,” Hess said. “We’re just really trying to scramble and get everything organized.”

“Digital companies” may have been too successful in avoiding regulation, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told the Brookings Institution Tuesday. The rollback of Wheeler’s net neutrality order by what he called “the Trump FCC” included disavowing jurisdiction over the internet, leaving room for states to step in with their own rules, Wheeler again (see 1903110063) said. Digital companies got what they wanted and maybe a little too much, he said. Wheeler said Facebook isn’t a neutral carrier of information but instead exercises editorial control over what users see. The company should release open application programming interfaces for how it gathers and publishes content, so consumers can see “what’s going in and going out,” Wheeler said. Current antitrust regulations can’t adequately constrain such companies because those rules are based on pricing and Facebook is free, he said. “The rules that have worked for industrial capitalism are no longer sufficient for internet capitalism.” The current wave of technological change isn’t unprecedented, and harkens back to similar shifts such as the development of the printing press, Wheeler said. His new book argues the internet hasn’t yet caused the same degree of upheaval, but it’s on the cusp of such an event, and the fast pace of technological change is short-circuiting democratic processes needed to digest the shift. That gap allows “authoritarians” to step up and offer “slogans instead of solutions,” said Wheeler, offering “The Wall” and Brexit as examples. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., also mentioned state telecom policy in his introduction of Wheeler, saying localities should be allowed to create their own municipal networks to compete with ISPs. Americans across the country unanimously support net neutrality, Doyle said. Facebook didn't comment.

Deere & Co. urged improving mobile broadband data collection and mapping to identify coverage gaps affecting agriculture. In meetings with aides to every FCC commissioner, company representatives discussed developing "potential mapping tools ... using Commission cell tower data" combined with public Agriculture Department crop information, plus cited state examples of using such tools. "Commission rules and support programs should recognize and address the growing unmet need for mobile broadband coverage ... in areas of agricultural operations," said a filing posted Monday docket 11-10. It also cited GPS' key role in "high precision agriculture and the benefits ... made possible through continuing access to Galileo satellites." USTelecom and telco members "stressed the importance of granular data to make federal funding programs, including CAF 3, as targeted as possible." The group's mapping proposal also would allow "auction participants to bid with the full knowledge of exactly how many locations in a census block require service and, importantly, exactly where those locations are," said a filing Friday on meetings with Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force and Office of Economic and Analytics. "Future funding programs should target all unserved locations, not just those previously defined as 'high cost,' because the market has failed to provide service regardless of predictions about their economic viability." The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is "deeply concerned with potentially significant overstatement of fixed broadband deployment" due to current Form 477 guidelines, said a filing on a meeting Wireline Bureau staffers. "The issue of reporting of served locations within census blocks, particularly rural census blocks, is conflated unnecessarily with the challenges of identifying locations in rural census blocks. The two considerations are distinct and can and should be addressed separately."

T-Mobile promised to continue to offer Lifeline service, should it get the OK to buy Sprint. “New T-Mobile has no contemplated end date to its participation in the Lifeline program, and the company has no intention to stop offering Lifeline in any state where T-Mobile and Assurance currently offer it,” the buyer wrote Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif. T-Mobile also countered Communications Workers of America complaints the company's buy of Iowa Wireless last year was bad for broadband in that state. CWA raised the issue in the context of the T-Mobile/Sprint deal. “IWireless’s 2G and 3G service was vastly inferior to the quality of T-Mobile’s mobile broadband,” T-Mobile told an aide to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-197. “IWireless had no low-band spectrum and relatively limited 4G LTE coverage. T-Mobile is already investing more than $70 million to transform the network by building out its 600 MHz spectrum and introducing 5G-ready sites throughout Iowa.” T-Mobile and Sprint engineering staff told the FCC team reviewing the deal the companies' "three-year network migration process was designed to minimize customer disruption and provide superior user experience at all stages of the migration.” They said their combination "would drive down the cost of capacity and coverage by making more efficient use of existing spectrum and other network assets.”

California's net neutrality law is "a consequence" of FCC deregulation, said ex-commission Chairman Tom Wheeler on C-SPAN: "If the federal government has stepped aside, and the agency responsible for America’s networks says, 'No, we don’t have this responsibility any more for internet networks,' and we are a federal system, then why should we be surprised if the states step up?" Under President Donald Trump, "those networks regulated by the FCC have gotten everything they want. And they turn around and they say, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s a void there, we need some kind of rules.’ So they turn around and they go to Congress and say, ‘We’ve got to pre-empt what California has done,'" Wheeler added. ISPs are discovering the truth of what Adam Smith wrote that markets can't work without rules, Wheeler told The Communicators, put online Friday and televised this week. "They had uniform set of rules on open internet … on privacy that got overturned in the Trump administration." Monday, the Internet Association and USTelecom didn't comment and the commission and NCTA declined to comment. Wheeler criticized the FCC on cybersecurity under Chairman Ajit Pai. "If the most important network is probably going to be the wireless network, now in shorthand described as 5G," Wheeler asked, "what are we doing now to get in front of the threats that we know are coming?" The agency under Wheeler sought to require standards for spectrum the agency is making available for fifth-generation wireless be able to prevent such attacks, and sought technical feedback from experts, he recalled. "When the Trump FCC came in, they shut down both of these activities." He said the examination of what 5G gear can be bought is "important," such as whether equipment can come from Chinese companies. "The first step in rebalancing between the people and the powerful begins with oversight of the dominant network" via net neutrality, Wheeler blogged Friday for the Brookings Institution. "The second step comes with the establishment of rules for those who ride on the internet." The Trump FTC, which declined comment Monday, "has made noises, but has yet to step up to this challenge," wrote Wheeler, a Brookings visiting fellow. "Today’s internet barons behave just as the industrial barons in [then-President Teddy] Roosevelt’s day."